


such a petty price to pay

by runandgo



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: F/F, Fighting, Hair-pulling, M/M, Pain, d/s dynamics, im sorry everyone, no actual sex though, why do i love torturing john laurens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-09
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-07-14 02:47:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7149572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runandgo/pseuds/runandgo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He'll admit, with a few shots of tequila in him, that he likes the pain. Likes to press his fingers against the bruises and hiss at the sensation, feel it spread hot and hungry over his skin and down to his muscles, burn slow all the way to his bones.</p>
            </blockquote>





	such a petty price to pay

**Author's Note:**

> my second hamilton fic yay! more john laurens liking to fight because i will Never let this trope die. and also because i've been reading so much fic lately and i needed to write this, so sorry if it's been done a bunch before? as usual, this is completely un-betaed, so any errors are my own dumbass fault. i wrote this over the course of two days, and as with most of my fics, i mostly just wanted to get it out there before i completely ruin it by overanalyzing.
> 
> i know everyone says this, but getting comments and kudos literally makes my day! if you enjoyed it, tell me why, and if you didn't, constructive criticism is always appreciated! title is from call me in the afternoon by half moon run.
> 
> for more details about this weird universe please visit the end notes! (also sorry if you saw this earlier, i did repost it because ao3 put it at the wrong time and it got booted way back in the tag :-/)

It's not that John likes it. He definitely doesn't, will loudly deny it to Laf and Alex and even Washington, who could look at him once and have him crying and confessing almost anything. But there's something undeniable about standing with his back to the wall, his blood in his ears, squaring up to take a punch again. Letting the impact roll through him, fluid, and then smacking back. Redistribution of energy. The physics of fighting.

And the _pain._ He'll admit, with a few shots of tequila in him, that he likes that. Likes to press his fingers against the bruises and hiss at the pain, feel it spread hot and hungry over his skin and down to his muscles, burn slow all the way to his bones. It feels like when he had braces and couldn't stop pressing his tongue against the newly tightened wires, even though it hurt so much it brought tears to his eyes. 

But the problem is that Washington does not like him fighting. Well, no one really _likes_ him fighting, but Alex was the only one who tried to stop him until last week. John had slipped in around one on Friday night, turned his key slowly in the lock so the latch tripped gently open, toed off his shoes by the door and started walking with light and careful steps towards his room - then froze. Someone had cleared their throat in the kitchen. 

When John turned around, Washington had been sitting at the island, drinking some kind of green smoothie. (Only he would, at one in the morning. God knows how he found things to make it in this house filled with the trash generally consumed by college boys.) He rapped the steel counter next to him with a knuckle. "Come here, son." 

Cringing, John walked towards Washington into the light and watched his face change when he got a full view. "Yeah," John winced. 

Washington set his jaw hard, trying not to react to the dried rivulet of blood coming from John's nose, or the bruise blooming on his cheekbone. "Clean your face off. Then come back here. Do not go to your room, do not go to Alex's room, do not go anywhere but the bathroom." 

"Yes, sir," John mumbled, and headed down the hallway. With careful, light fingers, under the sterile light of the bathroom, he tested his nose. Not broken this time, thank God. He had wiped the blood away and hurried back to the kitchen, dread growing in his chest. Washington's tone meant Business with a capital B, and he wasn't looking forward to it, but he knew that if he avoided it the consequences would be worse. 

John slunk almost sheepish back into the kitchen, and Washington finally showed a sign of emotion when he looked relieved at the fact that no bones had been broken. "Mr. Laurens," he began, and hesitated before plowing on. "Why do you do this?" 

John blinked, twice. "Sorry, sir?" 

Washington gestured to his face. "This. Fight." 

"Uh..." It took him a few seconds to think about it. "Well, if someone's talking shit, I gotta teach them a lesson." 

"With your fists? Really?" The derision in Washington's voice practically _dripped,_ and John had been forced to physically bite his lip and take a deep breath so he didn't snap at the man who's currently housing him and his boyfriend very cheaply. 

"I mean..." He swallowed, shrugged, looked anywhere but Washington's face, because he was just close enough to that side of riled up that his emotions were running high and if he met Washington's eyes he might have started crying and said everything. "That's the main way I know how, sir." 

"Next time, try walking away," Washington said dryly, and tapped the table in front of John. "Mr. Laurens. You're a fine young man, a good tenant, a good student. You pay your rent on time. You're a good friend, from what Gilbert tells me, and a good boyfriend, from what I can gather from you and Alexander. But your temper threatens your success. And if you don't get it under control, I may be forced to looking into other living arrangements for you. I dislike that it's come to this, but I don't want to be taking you to the hospital over these quarrels." 

_Oh God. Oh God._ Find somewhere else to live? No, no, absolutely not. That would be so _expensive_ and John doesn't have a _real job,_ just works at the campus store, and what about _Alex_ \- 

Washington had been staring again when John tore himself out of his fearful reverie. "Understood?" Kind eyes, but businesslike. 

He breathed, deeply, shakily. "Understood, sir." 

It's only been two weeks, and John misses it like an addict. He decides that he could never pick between the pain and the fighting, but if he had a gun to his head he'd choose the pain. Static is buzzing in his limbs. All he wants is to _focus_ , to have something singular to capture his attention instead of having it spread all over the place. 

After another week, he's going crazy. 

He can't stop moving. Everywhere he goes, he bounces off the walls. Trying to get work done is hopeless. And John feels _miserable,_ he really does. But he _can't stop._

It's a hot, sticky Wednesday in early May. John's locked himself inside Butler Library, trying in vain to finish this goddamn civics paper. Eliza is next to him, almost infuriatingly calm, chewing on the end of her pen and tapping quietly away. With a frustrated noise, he pushes his chair away from the table and buries his head in his hand. 

"What's wrong?" Eliza's voice is quiet as she takes out an earbud - he can hear the tinny notes of the Pokemon soundtrack coming out - and cocks her head at him. "That's the third time you've done that. I thought maybe it was just a frustrating paper, but this is a little excessive." 

John groans internally. How do you politely tell your newest friend _Oh, so I'm weirdly addicted to pain, which is just_ great, _and normally I would just go get beat up, because that's apparently how I deal with my problems, but my best friend's foster father who is currently letting me live in his house with my boyfriend won't let me?_ After a moment of waffling, he decides on simply saying "Restless, I guess." 

She gives him a long glance. "Uh-huh. Boyfriend troubles?" 

"No! Alex and I are fine." It's true - it's just that John has been a little, well, _annoying_ lately. Messing with Alex's papers, wearing shoes on his bed, listening to music loud enough that it can be heard while Alex is studying. Pressing his buttons. 

"Really." She raises an eyebrow at John, and he sighs. 

"Really, Eliza, I'm fine." 

"Okay, well." She stands up and stretches, soft t-shirt rucking up and showing a pale strip of skin. "I've got a date, and you're not getting any work done, so I'm calling it a night. And I'd suggest you do the same." As Eliza unplugs her computer, a shorter girl with dark, curly hair that fizzes out of the bun she’s wrestled it into and lips painted red slips up behind her, grabs her waist delicately. Eliza jumps about a foot in the air and clamps her hand over her mouth before letting out a laugh as quiet as she can, musical like a wind chime. 

“Hey, baby,” the girl murmurs, presses a kiss to Eliza’s neck before turning to see John. “Oh, sorry, hey. I’m Maria, I’m Eliza’s girlfriend. And you are…” 

”John, John Laurens,” he supplies hurriedly, shifting his books from one hand to another to shake her hand. Now that he looks at her, he’s pretty sure that she was in his Lit Humanities class freshman year. They’d studied the Aenid together and done double shots of some of the worst flavored vodka he’d ever tasted when they turned in their papers. 

Maria’s narrowed eyes tell him she’s figuring it out, and he’s already nodding when she lights up and shoves his shoulder. “Right! Laurens. The Van Gogh vodka. Jeeeeeesus.” She whistles and tosses her head back, grinning. “We got so wasted, dude.” 

”Ha, yeah.” John manages a weak laugh and shoves his hands in his pockets. 

“Okay, well. I am going to take this lovely lady out for dinner -” Eliza crinkles her nose, and Maria leans in to kiss it - “so sorry to steal her away, but she’s mine now.” 

“Bye, John,” Eliza calls as she and Maria whirlwind out of the doors, giggling. He can’t stop the little smile that he gets from watching them, and it puts a skip in his step as he swipes his card and steps onto the 1 train. 

30 minutes and a transfer later, he’s opening the door to the house. “Hey, I’m home!” John yells, stooping to take off his clunky boots at the door. 

“‘Allo,” Laf calls from the living room, slightly garbled through his mouthful of food. 

“What’s up, my fine French friend,” John says. He takes a flying jump and lands on the couch, earning himself a look of mild disapproval, then grabs a handful of the chips that Laf has open on his lap. 

“Eh, nothing. My Political Science final is coming soon, so we had a study session earlier today in the library.” 

“Oh, I was just there,” John remarks idly. On the TV, Scully and Mulder are arguing in the car. 

“Can I braid your hair?” Laf asks, and John gives him a silent yes by turning around and leaning against him. 

As his friend brushes through his hair, John can feel his shoulders relaxing, if only for a few minutes. Someone playing with his hair always calms him down. 

Then Laf takes the first part of his hair and _yanks,_ and John loses his breath. _Fuck._ He'd forgotten how _cruel_ Laf could be to hair, pulling braids so tight that people were known to cry. 

John is definitely in trouble. 

All the while that Laf is working away, John's biting his lip to shreds, hoping to not verbalize what he's feeling. The dull tug from the hair is so good, so good in a way he hadn't been expecting. He can't stop himself from sighing a little. 

_"Tout est bon, mon ami ?"_ Lafayette's voice, concerned, comes from next to John's ear. His fingers slow. "I can pull more gently, if you want." 

"No!" John yelps. "No, it's good, Laf, you're almost done. You can keep going." 

"Very well," he mutters with a strange look to his friend. 

The rest of it goes by too fast, and before John knows it, his hair is tied up, neat in a twine bow. Laf leaves to study again, so John is alone in the house. Hercules is working, and Alex is studying with his Global Studies class. 

He runs his hand over the side of his hair where it was pulled tight and _shivers._ The memory of the pain is so good. He's tempted to pull it, but then he'd mess up the beautiful handiwork. 

Instead, he waits until Alex comes home. Calls attention to it until he untangles it while they're making out, runs his fingers over John's almost-bruised scalp. John wants to tell him to pull it, wants to feel deep down to his bones, wants Alex's teeth and hands with something so fierce it scares him. But it's enough for now. 

*** 

"Remember how I told you I wasn't having boyfriend trouble?" John asks, a few days later, hands curled around a cappuccino in Eliza's favorite cafe. 

"Yes..." she says, wary, sipping her Earl Grey. "I'm sensing a 'but.'" 

"The problem is that I want... more than he's giving me. I mean - your relationship looks _good,_ it looks fun." 

"That's because it is. And because Maria and I talk." Eliza shifts so she's sitting on her left foot. Her eyes are expressive, lined today with smoky blue eyeliner. "So what's the deal? Alex looks like the perfect boyfriend from my perspective, if that matters." 

"He's just so... _nice_ all the time, you know?" John can feel his face heating up. Is this a conversation you can have in a cafe? 

"What?" Then: _"Oh."_ Realization dawns, and Eliza's face turns mischievous. "Well, you could ask him to be... less nice." 

"Right, because that would totally work," he scoffs. 

"It does." She meets his look of incredulity with a cool, level gaze, then wordlessly pulls her foot out from under her. It takes a few seconds for John to look past her painted, pointing finger at the red marks on her ankle. 

"Is that _rope burn?_ " he hisses quietly, face burning with a blush. 

Eliza's grin is slow and wicked and all the answer he needs. "Maria is mean to me when I ask her nicely." 

So he leaves the air-conditioning of the cafe and exits into the humid air, gets on the train, heads home. He turns what Eliza said over in his mind like a lucky penny. _"If you annoy him, he'll pay attention to you. He might get what's up. Or you might have to straight-up tell him. But that might get him in the right sort of mindset. Either way, you have to talk to him, because going into this without talking is a supremely terrible idea."_

Alex is in his room when John gets home, poring over some giant tome of a textbook. He waves from the bed at the sound of feet. "Hey, John, hi." 

Crosslegged, John sits on the end of his bed and wriggles a little. Just so Alex knows he's there. And then slips in his headphones (the shitty ones that shock him in the winter) and jacks up the volume. And taps his foot. 

Predictably, it takes Alex less than two minutes to get pissed off. "John, sweetheart. Could you please turn down your music?" 

Even though he can hear him (John's an asshole but he has no desire to go deaf), he keeps grooving, moving his shoulders subtly, pretending like Alex's comments are drowned by the music. That's short-lived, though, because no sooner had John gotten into the rhythm of the song than an earbud is yanked out of his ear. "All right, what the fuck?" Alex demands. "You're going crazy, man. All week long, you've been annoying, doing stuff that you know pisses me off. I like to think I'm pretty forgiving, but what gives? What do you want?" 

John stays still, watches the harsh rise and fall of Alex's chest, the muscles in his arm as they tense, the set of his jaw. "Be mean to me," he says lowly, barely above a whisper. 

Alex shakes his head, confused. "Be - I'm sorry, what?" 

"You're mad at me, right?" John shifts onto his knees, looks up at Alex from under his eyelashes. "So be mean to me. Pull my hair, bite me. Slap me. _Hurt_ me. Gimme something I'll feel tomorrow, and the day after that." It sounds stupid out there in the air like that, and he winces. 

There's a moment of silence where he's afraid he's stepped too far, and he wants to jump up and rescind everything he just said. But he watches as Alex's eyes go wide, looking for all the world like he's seen the light, and then his hand lands on John's head, weaves into his thick hair, _pulls._ And John can't be held responsible for what comes out of his mouth. 

"Like this?" He can tell from his tone that he's unsure. 

"Oh my God, exactly." He's pretty sure his eyes are rolling back in his head. 

"Okay." Alex has that learning sound to his voice now. "Yeah, okay." He raps John's shoulder, hard but not unkind. "Look up at me." 

John does, and Alex seems different. More confident. His shoulders are drawn back. "If you don't like something, you tell me, all right? And Jesus, if you want this, you could have just asked. Instead of being an asshat all week." John laughs, nods, and Alex sucks his lip in, thinking. Pushes the door closed with his foot. 

*** 

In the morning, John takes a picture of the bruises and texts them to Eliza. She responds with a chain of surprised and happy emojis, followed by a "nicely done!" and a thumbs up that feels much too innocent for this situation. 

When they meet up on Wednesday for their now-weekly study session, she's smiling like the cat that got the cream. "See?" 

"Yeah, yeah, thank you," John responds with his own crooked grin. She turns around towards the elevator and he can see the scratch marks peeking over the top of her shirt. 

He presses on the marks all week, loves the feeling he gets from the little flare of pain. Loves it even more when Alex leans over him, ostensibly looking over his shoulder, and pushes on them, hard enough to make him see stars, then pulls away just as quickly. And he even loves it when Alex crawls in bed with him and puts an ice pack to his sore spots, kisses his shoulder, washes away any sharpness or fear like the tide itself coming in. His world narrows down again, something manageable instead of a sparse map of things he can't quite focus on. 

Maybe John isn't fighting, but maybe this is better. 

_slide another shot by and wipe your dirty hands on me_

 _swallow till you go blind and find a little company_

**Author's Note:**

> if you liked this and you wanna yell about lams with me don't hesitate to hit me up on tumblr [@shouttogether!!!](http://weareparamore.co.vu)  
>   
> so in this universe, alex, john, laf, and hercules all go to columbia university (aka king's college... i'm sorry i know it's a trope...). eliza and maria go to barnard, columbias "sister school," which shares classes with columbia. lafayette is washington's foster son, and john and alex live with them. GOT ALL THAT i hope so! tysm for reading


End file.
